10:11 – It was 30.3F (-1C) when I took Colin out this morning, and the temperature has dropped since then. The winds were about 30 MPH (48 KPH) sustained, with gusts to twice that.
When Barbara and I went down to change the particulate filter for the well water the other day, we noticed a drip coming from one of the pipes that leads from the pressure tank up into the house. We called the plumber, and Herschel showed up yesterday to repair it.
While he was here, he changed the particulate filter. I mentioned that the last time we’d changed it was exactly six months ago. We hadn’t noticed any lower flow rate at the faucets, even though the filter is only rated for two months.
Herschel said everything depended on the amount of silt and grit coming out of the well, and that around here people often went a year or eighteen months between filter changes. He said we had a good, clean well. Even after six months, the old filter wasn’t used up yet, and the clear filter housing had almost no grit or sediment in it. I have a reminder in my calendar to change the filter every two months, but I think I’ll just wait until we notice a decrease in flow rate before we change it next time.
* * * * *
While we were downstairs, Barbara checked our inventory of canned cream of * soups and said we’re actually in pretty good shape on them. We have a half dozen or so 8- and 10-packs, plus a considerable number in the kitchen pantry. So I guess we’ll hold off on a Sam’s run for the time being.
The next time Barbara goes down to Winston, if she has time she can make a Costco run and pick up more canned stuff, including three or four more 8-packs of Campbell’s cream soups, a couple cases of canned green beans, and several more cases of canned tomato sauce/paste. We have a partial case of small cans of Kirkland tomato paste in stock, but that’s it. And Barbara is making a batch of sloppy joe sauce in the slow cooker today.
Walmart came through on their two-day shipping promise. I ordered 18 jars of Bertolli alfredo sauce on Sunday, and they arrived yesterday. The box was pretty badly beaten up, but as usual they’d wrapped each jar individually in that crinkly paper stuff and then bagged them in groups of half a dozen. I also have a small order arriving from Amazon.com tomorrow: a case of 24 small cans of shiitake mushrooms and one #10 each of Augason dehydrated celery and dehydrated carrots. I think I’ll repackage the Augason stuff in quart canning jars with oxygen absorbers and keep one each up in the kitchen. We’re cooking a lot more from scratch/LTS, and many of the recipes call for either or both of those items.
When we do make up a batch of cream soup according to the recipe I posted yesterday, I think my first effort will be Cream of Ground Beef soup. We can make up a quadruple or octuple batch and freeze it in pint or quart bags.
* * * * *
Overcast “snow sky” here but no snow, while southern New England is getting hammered, siblings report heavy snow continuing, LOTS of traffic ball-ups and accidents in the Greater Boston area and the ‘burbs, per usual.
I renewed my Red Hat developer subscription and may play around with that on a machine later today; got the vets group meeting this afternoon.
Wife made it to Kalifornia but the plane was late and instead of five hours it took seven hours from Newark, so she spent the whole day yesterday in airports and planes. She’ll be gone until the 24th/25th, with next week in Denver and the following week in Charlotte. So the cats and dawg and me will of course be having major blow-out parties with wild and crazy womyn and dope and booze galore, and firing off guns into the night sky. If the neighbors complain, we’ll invite them over.
Whoo hoo! Party at Daves!
n
I think Dave’s party will be just as exciting than the ones at Bob’s when Barbara is gone. Wait, Dave probably reads Old English Literature at his parties. Definitely not for me. The only thing less exciting would be the parties here when my wife and daughter are away…
We do a group read of some nice Anglo-Saxon poems in the original Old English and then we watch several different film versions of Beowulf.
We have strippers.
Warming up after removing yesterday’s 4+ inches of snow/wintery mix/ice, a bit on the heavy side and the BA snowblower (BA=bigg a$$) sounded like it was throwing rocks with that 1/4-inch ice crust on top.
An advantage of our far greater than usual snow this year has been the neighbors cooperating. Since I have been using the BA snowblower to remove the large accumulations from all the walks in our cul-de-sac and from the front part of the driveways, when we get a “light” fill-in snow the neighbors are out clearing my snow as well as theirs. I bet we have the clearest walks and drives in the Tri-Cities.
Last night’s low was 27°F and it is now 31°F on its way to the predicted high of 43°F. Warnings are out for flash floods.
Why do I think you mean tools to remove insulation from wire or chemicals used to remove paint?
“I also have a small order arriving from Amazon.com tomorrow: … one #10 each of Augason dehydrated celery…”
Celery? Man, ya going to die. 🙁
28C at 3 AM here. Was about 42C yesterday, down to only 39C tomorrow. My current house is much nicer than the one I had in Canberra – I can’t touch the ceiling here and the shading is much better. Fans are on but a/c is off right now. I was freezing my butt off earlier with it on.
Due to the incompetence of the state Labor government we have rolling blackouts because we don’t have enough baseload power generation to support the air conditioners.
Meanwhile, as we speak coal fired power stations up north are being demolished because they can’t compete with heavily subsidised “green” power.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-02-09/sa-heatwave-further-potential-power-cuts/8254278
“We do a group read of some nice Anglo-Saxon poems in the original Old English…”
What? None of Cicero’s speeches?
“We have strippers.
Why do I think you mean tools to remove insulation from wire or chemicals used to remove paint?”
Not only does he have strippers, he has dykes… 🙂
“What? None of Cicero’s speeches?”
Those are for the more advanced womyn, mainly zombie strippers that Colonel Atoz is supposed to fly in from Lost Wages. Weather might be a problem now, though; major snow to our south, apparently. Nothing here yet.
I haven’t done the comparison, but I’m wondering if a one pound jar (or larger) of dried mushrooms might be a good alternative.
Mushrooms are something we use in small amounts, and cans last forever unopened.
“Microsoft Explains Why Windows Drivers Are Dated June 21, 2006”
http://www.pcmag.com/news/351668/microsoft-explains-why-windows-drivers-are-dated-june-21-20
“Microsoft drivers in a lot of cases are the fallback option. We all run hardware in our desktop PCs and laptops that’s supplied by third-party companies, and they produce drivers for those components. These drivers are preferable to Microsoft’s own, but if every time Microsoft released an updated driver it changed the timestamp to be current, Windows would view it as newer than the custom driver and replace it. You probably don’t want this to happen as manufacturer’s driver are more suited than Microsoft’s.”
“So to avoid this, Microsoft timestamps all drivers with the Windows Vista Release To Manufacturing (RTM) date, which is June 21, 2006. The Vista RTM was chosen because, “since only drivers as far back as Vista are compatible with new versions of Windows, every driver should have a date newer than Vista RTM, preserving the driver you installed as the best ranked driver.””
Cool !
When Barbara and I went down to change the particulate filter for the well water the other day, we noticed a drip coming from one of the pipes that leads from the pressure tank up into the house. We called the plumber, and Herschel showed up yesterday to repair it.
I don’t have any such particulate filter on the water well at the office. This must be why we get sand in our water occasionally XXXXXXXXXX often.
“Protesters ring ICE in Phoenix: Could woman in custody be the first deported because of Trump’s orders?”
http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/immigration/2017/02/08/could-woman-first-arizonan-deported-because-trump-orders/97637928/
“”Relevant databases indicate Ms. Garcia De Rayos has a prior felony conviction dating from March 2009 for criminal impersonation,” the statement said.”
This woman is an illegal immigrant. She is also adjudged guilty of stealing an American citizens identity. I am sad for her but, she broke the law. Twice.
Welcome to our national nightmare.
re deporting illegal immigrants who’ve committed crimes in the US (other than simply being here), we should mark them somehow before deporting them. I favor branding, but a tattoo on the face would be acceptable.
The only thing more boring than a party where you watch paint dry is a party where you take paint off.
“Microsoft Explains Why Windows Drivers Are Dated June 21, 2006”
I have an old MacBook Pro “Santa Rosa” that I use as a Windows 7 machine. It works great for that purpose, but I have to be really careful with driver upgrades, especially from Intel. I have a lot of drivers dated 6/21/2006 as a result even though newer versions are available from the component manufacturers.
Of course, Apple could do the responsible thing and release an updated Boot Camp driver set, but I’m sure they wish the Santa Rosas would just go away.
” We have strippers.
The only thing more boring than a party where you watch paint dry is a party where you take paint off.”
Ah, yes, but we have not just paint strippers but a variety of wire and coax strippers here. You wouldn’t be bored. (I also have neat stuff like 66- and 88-block punchdown tools, toners and inductive amps, and (if we want to go crazy) wire nuts *and* crimp-on wire connectors.
I have a DB-25 connector tool for inserting and removing pins and sockets!
Ooh ooh, bring it to the party.
I have a DB-25 breakout box, with LEDs. I can leave the insertion/removal tool at home because someone else is bringing that.
Robots ‘could replace 250,000 UK public sector workers’
Bah. Reports have it that UK “civil servants” are even more useless than the US variety, and most US “civil servants” could be replaced by a box of dryer lint, to the improvement of society.
That’s the main reason I favor a universal basic income, so that useless bureaucrats and private sector middle managers can be fired without whining about leaving them to starve. Most of them have their jobs solely for the sake of providing jobs, and an unfortunate number of them feel the need to show they’re being productive. (Sneer quotes may be inferred.)
Crazy geeks!
Back from vets group meeting; only three of us today, plus the psych moderator. It went, as these things often do in my experience, the full 90 minutes. Me, the 70-year-old Army special forces vet, and our newest guy, a very angry and bitter kid from the ongoing Afghanistan debacle. It went very well, with those two guys telling a whole bunch of war stories and me and the moderator guy mostly listening. So much stuff is similar, but there were some differences: the kid says they couldn’t fire back at asshole hadjis firing at them, once the latter had dumped their weapons. And he said the sand and grit and dust was 7×24 and relentless; they all had awful constant coughing fits.
He also said that the PC disease was widespread and fully operational at the bases there, and as was true at SEA bases, officers had air-conditioned trailers and the enlisted scum ate shit.
Both guys said that out in the sticks the PC crap and chickenshit officers were hard to find and they could get more done and take care of each other better. This jibed with my own experiences back then, too.
The special forces guy said they lived in underground bunkers inside a “closed compound,” no indigneous personnel allowed inside, and free-fire zone on the perimeter. They were very close to the Cambodian border and surrounded mainly by Montagnards, who were friendly. But with regular VC attacks at night.
It was an interesting session, and I’ve found that this seems to be the case when there are only two or three of us, and/or the moderator isn’t there. Filed in the OFD brain cabinets for future reference.
We’ve had zero snow here but it’s 5 degrees right now with no wind, thus not too bad; I got home and picked up a bunch of stuff that had previously blown all over the back yard. Should rocket into the 30s this weekend, though. Tee shirt weathuh.
Don’t know how much snow we got here; by the time I got home it had blown into drifts of greatly varying heights. The important number is that it took me well over an hour to clear the driveway and on-property sidewalks and stairs. I’d have used the snowblower because it would be faster and I had other things I need to do, but I discovered that there’s no gas for it. No problem; I mostly don’t mind shoveling and it’s decent exercise, and I’ll just make coffee and work late on the programming what needs to be done, and do the car work in the morning.
(My van was fine Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday I worked from home and didn’t drive, and my wife drove the van “just to move it in the driveway”. This morning the check engine light was on, and the engine was running rough, and on the way home from the client site the light started flashing. That’s normally a bad sign. I bought the parts to swap out most of the ignition system, and now am looking forward with great joy to the probable two hours’ of work to do it. And just hope that not all of the parts need to be replaced and that I don’t need to do anything with the injectors. It’s not certain that my wife screwed it up, but the coincidences sure do pile up after she’s driven my van or used some of my tools “just for a minute” or anything like that.)
Ooh ooh, bring it to the party.
Don’t forget the coax tester with color-coded terminators. Pretty.
I also have an honest-to-goodness 10BaseT hub with coax connector, fished out of the back of a cabinet in my lab office.
I also have an honest-to-goodness 10BaseT hub with coax connector, fished out of the back of a cabinet in my lab office.
I was RUTHLESS in the last office move and threw away an 8 port 10base2 hub. It was a real piece of crap to keep running as the coax line daisy chains were very subject to falling apart or extreme noise when the workstations / PCs were shifted. 10BaseT was a blessing in reliability.
I wired our Winston house for 10Base2 in 1991 or 2.
“…but the coincidences sure do pile up after she’s driven my van or used some of my tools “just for a minute” or anything like that.)”
I wish I could say I didn’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about, but sadly, I do. All too well. And when we get whatever vehicle back from Princess, it’s usually trashed, with something else wrong, and running on fumes. When I mention the wrong things to her mom, there is always an excuse or denial and I’m blown off. But that kinda stuff has been going on now for 20 years.
I’m sorry that I probably don’t have any arcane or ancient electronic gizmos to bring to the party, but I do have, being a book person, a couple of VAX/VMS systems manager manuals.
Saw the reference manual set for the MS Fortran compiler on the bookshelf at Goodwill this afternoon. 3/4 size custom vinyl ring binders. I left them there…..
I’ve wired 2 houses for 10baseT. I OWN an HP Cable verifier test set. I sold a fiber optic fusion splicer…
n
Thicken that soup, and serve it over toast. SOS
I was RUTHLESS in the last office move and threw away an 8 port 10base2 hub. It was a real piece of crap to keep running as the coax line daisy chains were very subject to falling apart or extreme noise when the workstations / PCs were shifted. 10BaseT was a blessing in reliability.
I keep real half duplex hubs around for debugging network protocols, but I buy Gigabit switches (everything is a switch at that speed) for any other application.
Finished Season Six of The Walking Dead.
Meeting up with Negan, BFD. Why get on your knees? They’re probably gonna enslave, torture and/or murder you so go for taking at least one of them out and make them kill you right there. Fuck cowering on your knees and whimpering like a little girl. Go out in style.
Other takeaways: probably a good idea in this level of SHTF to not only stockpile all kinds of chit, but in the weapons line, along with the usual firearms and boxcar loads of ammo, you should by hook or by crook hook yourselves up with explosives and means of delivering them over distance. i.e, RPGs, rocket launchers, grenade launchers, mortars, etc. And machine guns.
And if you have a walled and secure compound or town, stay the hell in it and defend it, instead of peeps going out hither and yon wandering around in the woods, where they invariably, despite much experience, get ambushed regularly by the walkers and other humans, and even counter-ambushed. That’s where you bushwhack the folks what is aimin’ to bushwhack YOU. So every time some idiot leaves the compound on unauthorized strolls, other bozos rush out after them; fuck ’em, they leave, they’re on their own.
But nothing will ever get that bad here; we have a cool new President and he’s gonna fix things and we don’t have to worry anymore and can go back to our couches and tee-vees.
“And Marry Our Fortunes Together”
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2017/02/09/and-marry-our-fortunes-together/
As usual, Sarah Hoyt says in 20,000 words what I would say in 100 words. But, she is a legal immigrant to the USA and brings good thoughts to the topic of legal / illegal immigration.
“What are we going to do about that? I don’t propose closing the door/declaring a policy of eternal celibacy. But I do propose to ask “What do they bring to the marriage?””
“It is the right of everyone who is already an American and whose futures will essentially be “married” to those of the new immigrants to ask “how will your contribution or lack thereof affect my descendants/the descendants of the people I care about?”
“This is neither racism, nor discrimination, but self-preservation. Anyone who says otherwise is trying to push you into a forced marriage.”
If our new immigrants cannot support themselves then, they bring NOTHING to the marriage. If they have to steal someone elses identity to work then, they bring NOTHING to the marriage.
Negan is a community organizer of the first degree. Rick is not. The governor was a half-hearted community organizer.
The problem with living in the various walled compounds that they have lived in is, the lack of food. The canned food is running out everywhere as the survivors have picked over just about everything.
And TWD starts the second half of the 7th season on Sunday night.
lynn: RE: Walking Dead – First let me say I have only watched the first two episodes so I am not any authority on the show. But I have worked extensively on SHTF planning for high-casualty scenarios, mostly pandemics. A Zombie infestation is a variant on the high-casualty scenario in that only a minority of “normals” survive and the Zombies do not have access to stored resources. In these scenarios the surviors have an embarasment of riches. thousands have access to resources intended for millions, so stocks of canned / preserved food and water should last many years. The same with weapons where the survivors would have access to the entire war fighting stockpile of munitions. Canned food in groceries and some local distribution centers might be picked over but major distribution warehouses should be sufficient for decades. As long as transportation is available food won’t be hard to scavenge.
But this brings me to my personal problem with the vast majority of the Zombie genre. The Zombies are portraied as near magical creatures, not needing to eat, drink, sleep, hibernate, or sucumbing to dehydration, starvation, hypothermia or overhating. Only John Ringo, in his Black Tide Rising books portraied a semi-realistic Zombie. In my real-world scenarios, the vast majority of zombies would expire within 12 months due to starvation or dehydration. They shouldn’t be able to survive in reezing weather or desert heat. So if survivors could make it a year they would have the world pretty much zombie free.
Zombies are shorthand for progs. Both are vicious, stupid, and easy to kill.
@harold,
I liked the moment in Black Tide, when Faith sees the zombies eating rats (of which there are a MULTITUDE) and realizes they will have to rethink their die off estimates- that the zombies might not simply die off.
Of course, eventually with no new zombies being made, they would succumb to accident and injury until there were many fewer left. The survivors who were trapped without enough food might not be comforted by the thought….
n
(and there was that ‘semi-hibernation’ thing to extend their viability)
“Zombies are shorthand for progs. Both are vicious, stupid, and easy to kill.”
You’re giving the progs too much credit and denigrating the Zombies (Zombies deserve capitalization and progs certainly do not).
Do not tolerate the intolerant.
lynn: RE: Walking Dead – First let me say I have only watched the first two episodes so I am not any authority on the show. But I have worked extensively on SHTF planning for high-casualty scenarios, mostly pandemics. A Zombie infestation is a variant on the high-casualty scenario in that only a minority of “normals” survive and the Zombies do not have access to stored resources. In these scenarios the surviors have an embarasment of riches. thousands have access to resources intended for millions, so stocks of canned / preserved food and water should last many years. The same with weapons where the survivors would have access to the entire war fighting stockpile of munitions. Canned food in groceries and some local distribution centers might be picked over but major distribution warehouses should be sufficient for decades. As long as transportation is available food won’t be hard to scavenge.
On TWD, they are 18 to 24 months in to the zombie apocalypse which took a couple of months itself (see FTWD). Basically, when the zombie disease started, the army setup massive road blocks around the country to try to contain the virus. That did not work.
Food in the stores and peoples homes is running out. Our plucky little band of survivors have not found any distribution centers yet. Several of the small groups of survivors are now growing food.
But, warlords are setting up communities and they are despotic. And they use food as weapon, just like it used today in Africa. Things are getting grim due to the humans, not the zombies.
As long as transportation is available food won’t be hard to scavenge.
Transportation is readily available. But fuel is not. Gasoline and diesel both age, especially in vented tanks. And even in the closed tanks, the vapor recovery systems use electricity which has long failed.
Only John Ringo, in his Black Tide Rising books portraied a semi-realistic Zombie.
I totally agree. The cause of the zombieism there is a manmade modified flu virus with a rabies virus payload. My son thinks that it is impossible, I do not know.